I thought, well they did a great job managing the previous tenant and they chose these people after checking on their credit worthiness, background checking for violence, etc. 

Since you bring up DTI, I assume you are not talking to a commercial portfolio lender although I can't know for sure as they could be evaluating your creditworthiness as a guarantor.  

Some list sources (I'm sorry, but I don't recall where I saw this) will let you search on various factors, including credit worthiness. 

Credit worthy investors pursuing sound cash flowing properties are not the reason the market collapsed.  

,I hear of smaller banks with no PMI on less than 20% down.and my other light at the end of the tunnel was a 3% down multi family qualifying loan with no PMI if you are 720 FICO and 3 month reserves in bank.i I am now credit worthy (mortgage score qualified) and after selling my wife on the fact that our 2016 tax return ($7,000) must all go towards our first Investment property and first property in general as downpayment/reserves.

I'd be asking those questions first before I even started looking into the borrower's income and credit worthiness.

One of my concerns about going to a lender just yet is the fact that they will need to pull my credit to see where I stand creditworthy-wise.  

,I hear of smaller banks with no PMI on less than 20% down.and my other light at the end of the tunnel was a 3% down multi family qualifying loan with no PMI if you are 720 FICO and 3 month reserves in bank.i I am now credit worthy (mortgage score qualified) and after selling my wife on the fact that our 2016 tax return ($7,000) must all go towards our first Investment property and first property in general as downpayment/reserves.

Now living in Springfield, I've not had much luck finding acceptable, creditworthy tenants.

In a nutshell:Hard money lenders are non-bank organizations that lend based upon the real estate asset itself, rather than on the creditworthiness of the borrower.